


Ashes

by eak_a_mouse



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (offscreen) - Freeform, Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 09:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20061655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eak_a_mouse/pseuds/eak_a_mouse
Summary: A conversation on family and weakness.





	Ashes

Stiles thinks that Derek must have known. Must have guessed what had driven Lydia down to the abandoned subway, driven her to drag his body back to the burnt out shell of a house, driven her to the edge of what exactly made her Lydia Martin. 

Surely Derek knew what Peter was?

Peter was something wrong, a blot on the landscape, a snag in the thread, something to be destroyed to save the whole. 

An abomination.

_

Derek never expected to find Stiles here. 

Scott, maybe if he was desperate or if Isaac had insisted.

But here he was, sitting in one of the abandoned cars, his hood up and his head back.

“I can feel your aura of grumpiness from here.” Stiles said without opening his eyes.

Derek huffed and moved to lean against the wall, looming over Stiles, who still wasn’t looking at him.

“Were you even planning on telling us they were coming before they showed up on our doorstep?” Stiles’ tone wasn’t even accusatory, just gently disappointed. 

Derek let his anger at Stiles’ show of contempt roll through him. The sharp pain of claws cutting into his palms barely registering before he was back in control. 

“You’re lucky I’m here. From what Deaton told me, so long as the pack makes a strong showing, the alphas will leave us the hell alone, mostly because of what Hale meant. And that’s fine.” He paused and when he opened his eyes it was to challenge Derek.

“But you haven’t exactly been the alpha we’ve needed.” 

“Scott chose his side. He chose his pack.” Derek can distinctly remember the feel of concrete beneath his palms when Scott told him one more time how very much he didn’t want Derek as his alpha. 

“Yeah and we both know Scott’s not ready. That’s not the problem though, buttercup. It’s your creepy uncle,” Stiles said. 

“Peter knows more than I do.” It felt like eating his shame to admit that much. “We need him.” 

“Yeah, well, what’s his price?” Stiles asked snidely.

“He’s pack. He’s family.” Derek said.

Derek doesn’t need to buy loyalty. There’s pack and that’s enough. It has to be enough, because he already buried Peter once and the thing is, no one else remembers the way Peter taught him to hunt and to fight and to make pancakes on sleepy Saturday mornings. That for a moment, when it was Peter with the red eyes, it seemed like everything could go back to the way it used to be. 

He’s not asking for Peter to take this from him, but-there’s no one and nothing else to remember the faces of the family they’ve lost. There are no photos, nothing he can hold, and he’s holding onto every memory like a drowning man holds onto his last breath, but there’s only so many he can save. 

“Tell me you don’t know about what he did to Lydia,” Stiles said quietly.

“Is that what this is about? Your little girlfriend? Because I’m pretty sure she already has her lizard prince.” 

This was so much easier. Dealing with Stiles when it’s for a stupid reason, like his crush that is going to nowheresville, is so much easier than dealing with a Stiles that sounds like he makes sense.

“Funny. Ha.” Stiles scrubbed his hands through his hair roughly for a moment before speaking again. “Tell me you trust him when he bit Scott, stabbed Jackson, psychologically tortured Lydia for we don’t even know how long.”

“He’s pack.”

“No, he’s a threat to the pack. Who knows all our little weaknesses. I’ve been lying to my Dad for months. Scott was rolling over for Gerard to save his mom and if Jackson and Lydia’s little display didn’t scream we are each other’s weaknesses you weren’t watching the same thing I was.”

“He’s under control.” 

Derek growled at the pity in Stiles’ eyes.

“Yeah, no. I don’t think so big boy.” With that, Stiles starts to walk away. 

The last person to call him that was Kate Argent. For a moment it’s like the breath’s been knocked out of him and then he’s moving to leave and he can’t. He can’t leave the car and he can see the ring he’d missed before.

Stiles trapped him. 

He roars, but Stiles is long gone. The only sound to answer him is the slamming of the door out. 

__

He paces for hours. A slow circuit past the claw marks he’d left after in the first few minutes, blind with rage, because he trusted Stiles. 

When Stiles gets back, he smells like the Molotov cocktails Lydia made. And something else sickly sweet that has Derek gagging because he knows that. That’s the smell of burnt flesh clogging his throat. 

Stiles stops five feet from the dividing line. 

He just stands there. 

Derek realizes he’s growling, a low irregular rhythm he couldn't stop- can’t stop. 

“I just-why?” There’s an embarrassing whine at the end that Derek’s going to pretend didn’t happen.

“I’ll do whatever is necessary to get us out alive. He was allying with the alpha pack. He told them he could take control of the pack if they’d get rid of you.”

Derek knows Stiles isn’t telling the truth or maybe it’s a version of the truth or maybe it’s something he only believes to be true but his heartbeat's steady and it’s like Kate Argent saying “I love you” all over again. And he doesn’t know what to believe or what to trust or even where to begin to pick this whole mess apart. 

Stiles brushes the ash out of line.

Then walks away.


End file.
